Offender Profiling

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What does offender profiling entail?

Initially developed by the FBI

Involves the interpretation of a crime scene to cast light on the identity of the perpetrator

Most useful for crimes such as rape and arson

What do offender profiles include?

Demographics

Criminal history

Socio-economic status

Employment

Education

Relationships

Residence

Psychopathology

Personality

Describe the clinical procedural approach to offender profiling and give a reference

Doesn't attempt to solve case, only provide insight into the life of the criminal and the nature of the crime

Uses expertise from forensic mental health as well

Copson et al 1997 & Boon 1997

Case material looked at

Crime scene visited

Crime type inferred at a fundamental level (murder etc)

Extrapolated to a more specific level (weapons used etc)

Reconstruction of events is inferred contemplating the questions of What?, How? and To whom?

Motives are inferred; looking for emotions, desires, moods and psychopathy, and bring in factors from relevant literature

The crime is related to existing personality theories and the literature is drawn upon

Social and demographic factors are introduced

What are the problems with the clinical approach?

Profilers are trying to please the police meaning they could over-interpretate data

Close interaction with the officer leaves the profiler open to allegations of improper collusion, such as tailoring a profile to fit a known suspect, or devising some interviewing strategy which is unethical or even unlawful.

Recording is difficult and time consuming due to the sheer amount of data meaning reports take a long time and aren't always published

The reduction of a wealth of information into a single report could mean it is misinterpreted

Copson et al (1997)

What does criminal investigative analysis entail?

Typologies are developed from interviews with 36 sexually motivated serial killers (Wilson et al, 1997) as well as the combined expertise of the investigative experience of members of the FBI behavioural science unit

Either classified as organised, disorganised or mixed (Jackson and Bekerian, 1997)

What is the statistical method of profiling?

Attributed to Canter (2000)

Assumes offender profiling is similar to psychology (we use psychometric tests to predict future behaviour in the workplace)

Use databases of solved crimes and apprehended criminals to generate statistically derived relationships between crime scene and offender and make predictions about the characteristics of the suspect in question

Theories are based in research, doing things such as grouping crimes together and looking at the characteristics of caught offenders to see if there is a common element that can be looked for (Canter & Heritage, 1990)

This could be because crime scenes are assumed to be equally indicative of behaviour and not the interpersonal psychological factors at play at the time (Goodwill & Alison, 2007)

What are the main assumptions that come with offender profiling?

Evidence from crime scenes is accurate and complete

Known criminals are like unknown ones

Offenders can be typecast into different classifications

What is offence linkage?

Links are formed between previously unconnected crimes using M.O, physical evidence, victimology and crime scene analysis comparisons as well as the assumption that offenders can be differentiated based on their offence

Found to be useful for linkage on some factors but not others (behavioural indicators performed poorly) and some offence types cannot be linked as effectively

Situational factors could affect different types of offences and crime scene factors to different extents

What are the uses of offence linkage?

Can be used to detect geographical areas of distinct offender territory (Tonkin et al, 2011)

The size of this territory has also been found to reduce the likelihood of capture as it increases (Lammers & Bernasco 2013)

Dutch DNA database suggests the more dispersed the crime, the less likely it is to be solved